Heretics and Heroes: How Renaissance Artists and Reformation Priests Created Our World

From the inimitable bestselling author Thomas Cahill, another popular history - this one focusing on how the innovations of the Renaissance and the Reformation changed the Western world. A truly revolutionary audiobook. In Volume VI of his acclaimed Hinges of History series, Thomas Cahill guides us through the thrilling period of the Renaissance and the Reformation (the late fourteenth to the early seventeenth century), so full of innovation and cultural change that the Western world would not experience its like again until the twentieth century.

How the Irish Saved Civilization

Thanks to Thomas Cahill, the pivotal era called the "dark ages" is brought back to vibrant life, its personages portrayed in all their seemingly contemporary humanity, its issues simply and compellingly spelled out. How the Irish Saved Civilization will change forever the way we look at our past, and ourselves.

Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter

Best selling history writer Thomas Cahill continues his series on the roots of Western civilization with this volume about the contributions of ancient Greece to the development of contemporary culture. Tracing the origin of Greek culture in the migrations of armed Indo-European horsemen into Attica and the Peloponnesian peninsula, he follows their progress into the creation of the Greek city-states, the refinement of their machinery of war, and the flowering of intellectual and artistic culture.

The Middle Ages

In this indispensable volume, one of America's ranking scholars combines a life's work of research and teaching with the art of lively narration. Both authoritative and beautifully told, The Middle Ages is the full story of the thousand years between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance - a time that saw the rise of kings and emperors, the flowering of knighthood, the development of Europe, the increasing power of the Catholic Church, and the advent of the middle class.

The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise: Muslims, Christians, and Jews Under Islamic Rule in Medieval Spain

Scholars, journalists, and politicians uphold Muslim-ruled medieval Spain - "al-Andalus" - as a multicultural paradise, a place where Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived in harmony. There is only one problem with this widely accepted account: It is a myth. In this groundbreaking book, Northwestern University scholar Darío Fernández-Morera tells the full story of Islamic Spain. As professors, politicians, and pundits continue to celebrate Islamic Spain for its "multiculturalism" and "diversity", Fernández-Morera sets the record straight.

Saint Thomas Aquinas

Dubbed the "Dumb Ox" by his classmates for his shyness, Saint Thomas Aquinas proved to be possessed of the rarest brilliance, justifying the faith of his teacher, Albertus Magnus, and sparking a revolution in Christian thought. Chesterton's unsurpassed examination of Aquinas' thinking makes his philosophy accessible to listeners of any generation.

Medieval Europe

The millennium between the breakup of the western Roman Empire and the Reformation was a long and hugely transformative period - one not easily chronicled within a single book. Yet distinguished historian Chris Wickham has taken up the challenge in this landmark book, and he succeeds in producing the most riveting account of medieval Europe in a generation.

A History of the Middle Ages

A History of the Middle Ages is the amazing story of European man in transition. It is a dramatic chronicle of 1,000 years of political, social, and economic transformation beginning with the dissolution of the classical Mediterranean civilization and ending with the first flowering of the Renaissance. It is also the story of two new religions, Christianity and Islam, both of which were destined to dominate the mind of every person in those new civilizations arising in their wake.

The Thirteen: Greatest of Centuries

All the pivotal evolutions, developments, breakthroughs, issues, forces, and institutions of the thirteenth century are reviewed here by James Joseph Walsh at length and in depth... The work was published in 1913 and remains an essential look at a great century of the Middle Ages with almost everything in it: early universities, the church's influence, the strides made in public education, technical and economical developments, important thinkers and writers of the period - you name it, it's all in here!

Bill O'Reilly's Legends and Lies: The Patriots

The must-have companion to Bill O'Reilly's historical docudrama Legends and Lies: The Patriots, an exciting and eye-opening look at the Revolutionary War through the lives of its leaders. The American Revolution was neither inevitable nor a unanimous cause. It pitted neighbors against each other as loyalists and colonial rebels faced off for their lives and futures. These were the times that tried men's souls: No one was on stable ground, and few could be trusted.

The Lady of the Rivers

Jacquetta always has had the gift of second sight. As a child visiting her uncle, she met his prisoner, Joan of Arc, and saw her own power reflected in the young woman accused of witchcraft. They share the mystery of the tarot card of the wheel of fortune before Joan is taken to a horrific death. Jacquetta understands the danger for a woman who dares to dream. Jacquetta is married to the Duke of Bedford, English regent of France, and he introduces her to a mysterious world of learning and alchemy.

How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization

Western civilization has given us modern science, the wealth of free-market economics, the security of law, a sense of human rights and freedom, charity as a virtue, splendid art and music, philosophy grounded in reason, and innumerable other gifts we take for granted.

Seven Lies about Catholic History: Infamous Myths about the Church's Past and How to Answer Them

The world hates the Church that Jesus founded, just as He said it would (John 15:18). It reviles her doctrines, mocks her moral teachings and invents lies about her history. In every age, but especially in our modern day, historians and political powers have distorted the facts about her past (or just made up novel falsehoods from scratch) to make the Church, and the civilization it fostered, seem corrupt, backward, or simply evil.

Shadow on the Crown: A Novel

In 1002, 15-year-old Emma of Normandy crosses the Narrow Sea to wed the much older King Athelred of England, whom she meets for the first time at the church door. Thrust into an unfamiliar and treacherous court, with a husband who mistrusts her, stepsons who resent her and a bewitching rival who covets her crown, Emma must defend herself against her enemies and secure her status as queen by bearing a son.

The Modern Scholar: One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic: A History of the Church in the Middle Ages

Renowned professor Thomas F. Madden turns his scholarly eye on the intrigue and politics swirling about the Medieval Church. Professor Madden explores the compelling events that shaped the culture and forever altered history, from the Monophysite Controversy to reform movements to the Inquisition, Black Death, and Great Schism.

Edward III: The Perfect King

Holding power for over 50 years starting in 1327, Edward III was one of England's most influential kings and one who shaped the course of English history. Revered as one of the country's most illustrious leaders for centuries, he was also a usurper and a warmonger who ordered his uncle beheaded. A brutal man, to be sure, but also a brilliant one.

Words and Rules: The Ingredients of Language

First published in 2000, Words and Rules remains one of Pinker's most provocative and accessible books, illuminating the fascinating relationship between the brain, the mind, and how language makes us humans.

Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West

In the fifth century BC, a global superpower was determined to bring truth and order to what it regarded as two terrorist states. The superpower was Persia, incomparably rich in ambition, gold, and men. The terrorist states were Athens and Sparta, eccentric cities in a poor and mountainous backwater: Greece. The story of how their citizens took on the Great King of Persia, and thereby saved not only themselves, but Western civilization as well, is as heart-stopping and fateful as any episode in history.

A Brief History of the Celts: Brief Histories

For centuries the Celts held sway in Europe. Even after their conquest by the Romans, their culture remained vigorous, ensuring that much of it endured to feed an endless fascination with Celtic history and myths, artwork and treasures. A foremost authority on the Celtic peoples and their culture, Peter Berresford Ellis presents an invigoration overview of their world. With his gift for making the scholarly accessible, he discusses the Celts' mysterious origins and early history and investigates their rich and complex society.

The World Remade: America in World War I

After years of bitter debate, the United States declared war on Imperial Germany on April 6, 1917, plunging the country into the savage European conflict that would redraw the map of the continent - and the globe. The World Remade is an engrossing chronicle of America's pivotal, still controversial intervention into World War I, encompassing the tumultuous politics and towering historical figures that defined the era and forged the future.

Four Princes: Henry VIII, Francis I, Charles V, Suleiman the Magnificent and the Obsessions that Forged Modern Europe

John Julius Norwich - whom the Wall Street Journal called "the very model of a popular historian" - has crafted a big, bold tapestry of the early 16th century, when Europe and the Middle East were overshadowed by a quartet of legendary rulers, all born within a 10-year period. Against the vibrant background of the Renaissance, these four men laid the foundations for modern Europe and the Middle East, as they collectively impacted the culture, religion, and politics of their respective domains.

A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous Fourteenth Century

The fourteenth century reflects two contradictory images: on the one hand, a glittering time of crusades and castles, cathedrals and chivalry, and the exquisitely decorated Books of Hours; and on the other, a time of ferocity and spiritual agony, a world of chaos and the plague.

After the Prophet: The Epic Story of the Shia-Sunni Split in Islam

Even as Muhammad lay dying, the battle over who would take control of the new Islamic nation had begun, sparking a succession crisis marked by power grabs, assassination, political intrigue, and passionate faith. Soon Islam was embroiled in civil war, pitting its founder's controversial wife, Aisha, against his son-in-law, Ali, and shattering Muhammad's ideal of unity.

Publisher's Summary

After the long period of cultural decline known as the Dark Ages, Europe experienced a rebirth of scholarship, art, literature, philosophy, and science, and began to develop a vision of society that remains at the heart of Western civilization today.

By placing the image of the Virgin Mary at the center of their churches and their lives, medieval people exalted womanhood to a level unknown in any previous society. For the first time, men began to treat women with dignity, and women took up professions that had always been closed to them.

The communion bread, believed to be the body of Jesus, encouraged the formulation of new questions in philosophy: Could reality be so fluid that one substance could be transformed into another? Could ordinary bread become a holy reality? Could mud become gold, as the alchemists believed? These new questions pushed the minds of medieval thinkers toward what would become modern science.

Artists began to ask themselves similar questions. How can we depict human anatomy so that it looks real to the viewer? How can we depict motion in a composition that never moves? How can two dimensions appear to be three? Medieval artists (and writers, too) invented the Western tradition of realism.

On visits to the great cities of Europe - monumental Rome, the intellectually explosive Paris of Peter Abelard and Thomas Aquinas, the hotbed of scientific study that was Oxford, and the incomparable Florence of Dante and Giotto - Cahill brilliantly captures the spirit of experimentation, the colorful pageantry, and the passionate pursuit of knowledge that built the foundations for the modern world.

What the Critics Say

"The author wears his erudition lightly and leavens his writing with reader-friendly anachronisms....The result is a fresh, provocative look at an epoch that's both strange and tantalizingly familiar." (Publishers Weekly) "A prodigiously gifted populizar of Western philosophical and religious thought spotlights exemplary Christians in the High Middle Ages....Cahill serves as an irresistible guide: never dull, sometimes provocative, often luminous." (Kirkus Reviews)

I have immense respect for Thomas Cahill and this series. Cahill manages to cover a lot of ground in a few steps, encompassing politics, religion, art and culture in an engaging and informative style. His strength is in his ability to make history relevant -- why we should care what happened nine centuries or two millenia before we arrived. Where other texts often treat the reader to accounts drier than the bones of these long-dead movers and shakers, Cahill makes them as alive as the people we gossip about, and understands well what facets of a particular age will appeal to today's readers. I highly recommend this book, as well as any of the others in this series, "The Hinges of History."

So, to the one caveat: Cahill's politics do creep in; however, he offers his opinions openly and briefly.

It is so much fun to read a book where there's a fairly routine need to stop and look up a word. Cahill's approach to history is so lively and intellectual (at least for this old brain) that I feel entirely enlivened just realizing I read the book. To highlight several illustrious historic figures (Francis of Assisi, Hildegard of Bingen, and Dante Alighieri--to name a few)instead of using a linear way of covering the same ground is brilliant, not to mention fresh and stimulating, both. <br/><br/>But the most startlingly moving section of the book for me was his short Postlude, "Love in the Ruins" in which he describes in a heartbreaking way, how the Catholic church has so hideously betrayed its mission by its current wave of scandal. Although it might seem odd to find such a treatise on the way the Church has 'handled' the pedophilia crisis in a book about Medieval times, it is incredibly fitting--because if it were not for the Church, Cahill points out, Western Civilization as we know it would not exist.

Mr. Cahill is very good providing depth, and insight into our past. I was not disappointed by this audio version of his text. The narration makes the breath of information tolerable especially to those that believe they hate history. This book could serve as a valued primer for anyone intersted in studying this phase of Western and European development. Amazing the influence of art on developing society and it's use as a tool of political influence. Also explains why certain classes are required for freshmen entering college. A good listen for the academic in or near you.

Thomas Cahill reads, writes &/or speaks multiple languages including Italian, Greek & Hebrew! He's extremely readable (listenable in this case). He's an impeccable scholar with a vast & comprehensive grasp of Western culture & civilization's origins and history. He writes with ease, wit and insight about "the Hinges of History"; individuals, cultures, & events without whom or which history as we know it would have unfolded VERY differently! Unequivocally recommended!

This has quickly become one of my favorite period history books. I've become a fan of historical fiction set in the Middle Ages, and Mysteries of the Middle Ages serves as a good companion in that it helps explain some of the greater issues that helped shape the history of that time. Readers interested in the Middle Ages will find an abundance of fascinating information presented in chapters that illuminate aspects of history without getting bogged down in endless timelines and mind numbing details that often derail other similar books.

John Lee is an excellent narrator (as always) and enriches the book with his elegant accent, inflection and seemingly flawless performance of Latin, French and Old English.

There are a couple of points at which the author injects his own opinion about Catholicism, which I happen to agree with, but feel should have been left out as they were commentary and drifted away from the focus of the book as history.

Overall, this is one of those books I will return to again. It has also compelled me to look for more books written by Cahill and narrated by Lee.

Although Cahill is a masterful writer, his last chapter ruined his own work. It makes one wonder how much his history of the Middle Ages was tainted by his unorthodox diatribe at the end. Sorry I wasted the credit and the time on it.

As another reviewer noted, the author shares his "entirely inappropriate" contemporary political views, beginning in the introduction and continuing on and on. He's not very bright for an historian: in 20 years, those views will be either discredited, in which case his book is laughable, or ephemeral, in which case his book is simply irrelevant.
Read some Churchill instead: that man could write good history, and better English.